I know we’re all busy with the Centennial Celebration coming up in just a week and a half, but never fear (or maybe do) – there’s always time for Halloween books! Of course, Halloween connotes something different to everyone. Whether you see the day for trick-or-treating as a religious holiday, excuse to buy candy, or opportunity to exercise your creativity with a costume, ultimately Halloween has a rich literary tradition.
Need a costume?
These 31 inspired readers put together some great bookish costumes – if you’re planning on wearing a costume, your muse might live here!
Photo Credit Pinterest
Living with monsters
Darcey Steinke’s poignant essay grapples with raising her daughter free from the emotions that had haunted her mother, with a little help from Frankenstein’s author Mary Shelley, whose own mother wrote the feminist “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.”
Photo Credit The Telegraph
Some light thrills?
Be warned – these thrills might not be light! These newly-released YA books may all be horror, but the characters face different fears. Walk a haunted asylum, run from a serial killer, find the truth behind a secret society, or discover if Dracula has risen from the dead to walk the halls of a Victorian boarding school. It’s almost Halloween, so why not?
Photo Credit Pinterest
She’s a witch!
But really, this article talks about women throughout history whose transgressive femininity meant thatsociety labeled them as witches.
Photo Credit LitHub
Not quite Casper…
These novels have “ghosts” – some real, some metaphorical – that haunt characters attempting to work through their personal histories. Characters facing grief in hybrid-form works (sometimes by relying on alternate reality), reading the past through the present, something by 2017 Nobel winner Kazuo Ishiguro, and places which lose their meaning are among the selections offered here.
Photo Credit Christopher Fowler
Pie, anyone?
I won’t spoil this essay by Meg Elison about a giant pumpkin by telling you whether there is pie at the end!
Photo Credit Pinterest
Craving brains (and romance)?
She’s a witch (too)!
This interview with Katy Horan discusses her work illustrating the recently-released Literary Witches, fictional stories about female writers.
Illustration Credit Katy Horan
Can you judge a book by its cover?
Scroll through this collection of covers from pulp horror books for some shocking, ridiculous, and weird images of attacking creatures.
Photo Credit dangerousminds.net
Behind the nightmares
Learn about the woman behind the creepy cult favorite children’s book The Lonely Doll, which has black and white photographs that tell the story of a doll exploring her house.
Photo Credit Pinterest
Popcorn time!
If you just don’t think you have the time to start any books right now, these ten horror movies were based on books. You might have missed some of these classic movies/books – and, once you’re done, you’ll be able to say that old standard: “I haven’t read it, but I saw the movie!”
Photo Credit Letterboxd
